Monday, January 30, 2017

If the sun should slowly go darksettling us into eternal lightless nightthe windows of our souls shuttered for goodand in the twilight of this fading star falls the shadowdooming us to gloomy dusky deathI would mournfor the way the dawn illuminates the golden sweep of your hair across your facefor the reflection of radiance in your eyes as you look down into minefor the morning backilght on the bare curve of your hipedging youcoming aliveyou me and the sun

If the sea should rise up tumid past its shoresquondam polar ice caps drowning us in retributionrobbing our lungs of precious airgod repenting him of having made us sinnerscleansing tenuous life from this holy sphereI would cryfor breaths stolen between kissesfor waves of laughter sent into the nightfor the musk of you, redolent of sandalwood and sweat and sandgasps of joy and pleasure between the breakersgetting highyou, me, and the sea

If the earth should slip off its axisgravity slackening and whirling us from its surfacesetting us adrift into the cold vacuum of spaceno longer bound to ground or bound for heavenhurling us from its tired back between the motion and the actI would achefor the hot weight of your arm across my sleepy chestfor the heft of your strong body in my loving armsfor the gut-wrenching freefall of trusting you, and soft landings in your solid embracefalling in general, in lovegarden paths and rabbit holes forgoing downyou, me, and the earth

If fire should start to rain down from the skyincinerating our forests and our villages and homessearing flesh and spreading densest smoke across the landcinder and brimstone raining like the judgment of Gomorrahscorching our skin and setting our frames ablaze like dry grassI would grievefor the chill of your kiss evaporating on my foreheadfor winter evening walks in the crook of your armfor snuggling up to you before the hearth against the coldcool breath on sweaty necksblowingyou, me, and the fire

“need more space?” asks a signon my way home. the signis attached to a large (compared to me) building. i look up past the sign and the building and see winter stars, the blazing bottom half of the moon, the andromeda galaxy, and all the black between. it is interesting to me that in actuality almost all of the known universe isspace, that we live on a planet with more sea than land, that even the atoms of your body and mine are more spacethan matter, that i will spend more moments of my life without you than in your sweet presence. so no, we have plenty ofspace, dear sign. itis the everything else that weneed.

She closes her eyes toward the setting sun like a prayer, her skin tanned, her shirt white, her hair the color of honey, an ember between two fingers at her side. She likes the way the air is cool and the sun is warm here in November, likes that from half a block down you can smell the pine trees over the Quiznos and the shawarma place, likes that from here the 10 sounds enough like the ocean. She traces a finger along brick rough like a man’s stubble, and lets herself really feel it. A shirtless youth glides by on his board, his face tuned to her body, and she notices. A raven caws somewhere, a newspaper with the angry faces of candidates flaps half-heartedly against a stopsign pole, a helicopter is searching for someone toward Brentwood. She focuses her thoughts on the fire inside of her. For a moment, at least, she has found peace.

She doesn’t seem to know what I know.

Soon she will frown at her watch, drop her cigarette on the ground, grind it out and go back to work. The butt will lie there as a reminder, fading over the next few days, its paper shell breaking down and the brown tobacco inside puffing out like the guts of an overloved teddy bear, and on Thursday the street cleaner will angrily snatch it up and no human being will ever contemplate it again. The newspaper, too, will deteriorate, but new ones will be printed every day until the old people die off and only the web version remains. One of those candidates will win and people will have feelings about it, and in four years there will be new angry faces on the papers. The helicopter won’t find its man this time, but it will find other men sometimes and one day the force will get an upgrade and this one will sit in storage until they sell it to CBS for a period cop show that will be set now.

The needles will one by one fall off these pine trees and turn to dirt and be replaced by new needles, entire branches will turn brown and a man from the city will remove them in a cherry picker with a power saw. The sidewalk will crack, and men from the city will fix that, too. The Quiznos will close for a while and reopen as a boba place and then a vegan sandwich store. The shawarma place will get passed down to the owner’s daughter, who didn’t want it. Eventually the whole building will be torn down and replaced by a mixed-use development with apartments above a Coffee Bean, an art supply store, and a small gym.

The youth whizzing by has a few more years of still being one. As winter comes, and again with middle age, he’ll take his shirt off less and less. One day after his mom’s funeral he’ll find his board behind the freezer in her garage, and he’ll turn with a disbelieving smile to show it to someone, but there won’t be anyone there.

The girl will finish her shift, pay her rent, come back here tomorrow and the next days and take more breaks. She will put these shoes in a bag that she means to take to the Goodwill on Santa Monica, and then throw it away when she moves because her daughter is getting too big to not have her own room. The shirt will go out of style and she’ll think of it as her “grungies” that she wears for housework, and then it’ll be a rag for dusting. She will experience joy and pain, her body will be mistreated by men with faces like brick and by time itself. Younger girls will start making the kind of money she now makes. She will buy new parts. She will try new hair colors as an affordable way of reinventing herself. She’ll get a new job in a bar where the men drink to forget things and she will make many of them feel noticed again for a moment. Her idea of success will gradually shift to being about making her daughter successful instead. Something dark will grow in her, caused by the tanning or the cigarettes or the sun. She will be buried in a wig the color of honey. Her daughter will cry and wonder what moments she may have missed, never knowing like I do about this golden moment in the sun.

I myself will turn grey one day. I will lose my words as aluminum takes over my neural pathways, and I will die. I will write this all down in my computer so people might remember me once I’m gone, and they will for a while, and then they won’t.

This whole city will grow and grow upward and outward. The sea will encroach and the Novembers will get warmer. They will ration the water. Legislation will be passed to try to limit the population. Bricks will turn to red dust and blow away. The American empire will fall. Overpasses will house the people and then crumble. Future excavators will find remnants of computers in the earth and never unlock the writings inside. In seven billion years, the sun’s core will run out of hydrogen and then helium, and its outer layers will expand rapidly and envelop the earth, melting its nickel core and vaporizing all known life. Entropy will leave the universe cold and black like marbles coming to rest after a spill.

She doesn’t seem to know any of this.

She frowns at her watch, drops her cigarette to the ground, grinds it out and goes back to work. For a moment, she, at least, has found peace. Another moment passes. A raven caws somewhere. I close my eyes toward the setting sun like a prayer.

A boy murmurs, crestfallen, his voice not yet changed. He stands with a man with postures like they might not know each other, definitely not family. It’s warm for January, dark for seven o’clock. The sounds are: high school kids clanging latchkey doors, dogs jingling their masters along, the helados truck playing its calliope siren, the grand traffic of La Brea, grandmothers calling the children to dinner.

The boy and the man stand like they’re stuck here outside this apartment gate, unsure, travelers despairing of a rendezvous at a darkening oasis. He’s a light-skinned boy, his knees plump and ashy, dorky in his basketball shorts and his mix of disappointment and failed bravery. The man wears a beanie and all black; he didn’t go to any job today. The tired sort of man with skin that will always be watched in businesses. As he responds to the boy he looks wearily up the street both ways without letting the boy see.

“You know she loves you, man. She buys you food, she buys you nice shoes, she takes you on trips.” The boy murmurs again, perhaps more hopeful this time, but now I’m past. No one is coming up the street with keys out, hugging and apologizing and blaming dead phones. Just the boy and the man, standing there hoping defiantly in the barred shadows of a gate.

God bless the tired men who heal these hurting boys, and god bless the boys who see love in a meal and a trip and basketball shoes that shine through the darkness all the way back to my own house.